Hello, On 12/01/2025 at 11:53, Holger Wansing wrote:
Cyril Brulebois <kibi@debian.org> wrote (Sun, 12 Jan 2025 11:21:08 +0100):oliviosu_ppc64el@tutanota.com <oliviosu_ppc64el@tutanota.com> (2025-01-12):Hello, installing Trixie Alpha 1 on Tyan TN71-BP012 (POWER8) (/images/trixie_di_alpha1/ppc64el 2024/12/31) Installation goes well but installed system isn't bootable with Petitboot. Installation was made choosing automated partitioning for an entrier disk with LVM and luks. Doing that unencrypted /boot partition is ext4 and Petitboot can't see it. When partitioning if I edit /boot partition and set it to ext2 then after finishing installation, PetitBoot see it and I'm able to boot in the installed system.Sorry to hear about that. Looping in debian-boot@ who's responsible for the installer components that implement those choices.
The move from ext2 to ext4 for /boot was in response to bug #985463<https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=985463> after it was considered that bootloaders such as GRUB and U-Boot currently used with Debian supported ext4.
Inndeed it is unfortunate that a modern boot loader like Petitboot does not support ext4. It is even unexpected from a boot loader based on a Linux kernel, as mentioned in <https://open-power.github.io/petitboot/overview.html>.
thanks for pointing me on this. I have just pushed a fix for this, reverting back to ext2: https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/partman-auto/-/commit/a87cccbe0198b4dea2cc46a39d5f5b99501aa095
Partitioning recipes for ppc64el create a separate /boot partition only when using LVM (and this was never changed). When using plain partitions, /boot is on the ext4 root partition so the above fix will have no effect.
According to <https://github.com/open-power/petitboot/blob/master/README.md> and <https://open-power.github.io/petitboot/platforms.html>, Petitboot is also available for arm64 platforms. Partitioning recipes for arm64 also use ext4 for /boot, so it would not work either.